At the Westside Theatre in New York City, audiences are watching "Othello: the Remix," a retelling of William Shakespeare's classic play that transforms the protagonist into a rising hip-hop star. NewsHour Weekend's Ivette Feliciano sits down with the Q Brothers, the rap and theater artists who created the show, and other cast members.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. federal authorities cautioned local law enforcement on Friday to be aware that supporters of Islamic State have been calling for their sympathizers to attack holiday gatherings in the United States, including churches, a law enforcement official said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office accused the Obama administration Friday evening of secretly conspiring against Israel after the U.S. abstained from voting on a United Nations resolution that condemned his country's construction of settlements in Palestine as a "flagrant violation" of international law.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Saturday night that Israel and its friends will exact a heavy diplomatic and economic price from the opponents of Israel including the supporters of the UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements.. For starters, he announced the cutoff of Israel’s donations to five UN agencies. Speaking at the Bet Levinsteain rehabilitation center for wounded soldiers, before lighting a candle on the first day of Hanukkah, he asked: “Is there anything more absurd than labeling the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem or the Western Wall ‘occupied territories?”

Flatly rejecting the UN resolution, Netanyahu said he was greatly encouraged by his conversations with Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Washington, who promised to stand by Israel and get the UN resolution reversed.

America's History Of Meddling In Foreign ElectionsSeekerAmerica's History Of Meddling In Foreign Elections. Despite claims of Russia influencing the U.S. election, America is no stranger to similar tactics. Which elections have the U.S. meddled in? BY SEEKER. Learn More: The Guardian: CIA admits role in ...

Russian authorities have reportedly succeeded in unlocking an Apple iPhone owned by the off-duty police officer who shot and killed its ambassador to Turkey at an art show in Ankara last week as investigators look for potential links to terrorism.

WASHINGTON (AP) - India's national security adviser made a low-key visit to Washington earlier this week to meet with a senior aide to President-elect Donald Trump, Indian diplomats said Friday, in a sign of New Delhi's desire to forge close ties with the incoming U.S. administration.

Both the CIA and National Security Agency missed warning signs that renegade contractor Edward Snowden was a disgruntled worker who would eventually steal 1.5 million secret documents, according to a congressional study made public Thursday.

Snowden, who fled to Moscow after publicizing some of the documents through left-wing journalists, also “has had, and continues to have contact with Russian intelligence services” and voiced admiration for China during his brief career at the CIA and then NSA.

A declassified and redacted report by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that Snowden’s actions resulted in the Obama’s administration’s most damaging intelligence failure.

“The American people can now get a fuller account of Edward Snowden’s crimes and the reckless disregard he has shown for U.S. national security, including the safety of American servicemen and women,” said Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), the intelligence committee chairman. “It will take a long time to mitigate the damage he caused, and I look forward to the day when he returns to the United States to face justice.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif), the committee’s ranking member, added that “Snowden and his defenders claim that he is a whistleblower, but he isn’t, as the committee’s review shows. Most of the material he stole had nothing to do with Americans’ privacy, and its compromise has been of great value to America’s adversaries and those who mean to do America harm.”

The report concluded that intelligence documents disclosed by Snowden “caused massive damage to national security.” All examples of the damage, however, were blacked out in the report.

On Twitter, Snowden stated in response to the report: “Was I a pain in the ass to work with? Perhaps; many technologists are. But this report establishes no worse.”

“Bottom line: this report’s core claims are made without evidence, and are often contrary to both common sense and the public record,” he said.

The report is dated Sept. 15 and was originally classified “top secret.” Markings indicate the report dealt with signals intelligence—sensitive data collected electronically by NSA around the world.

“In June 2013, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden perpetrated the largest and most damaging release of classified information in U.S. intelligence history,” the report said.

The findings were based on a two-year committee probe that did not include interviews with Snowden, who is currently facing U.S. espionage charges.

Contrary to some media portrayals, the House report indicates Snowden was a disgruntled employee who argued with his superiors, ultimately fleeing NSA’s Kunia facility in Hawaii in May 2013. He then began disclosing documents in what he asserted was a bid to expose improper NSA surveillance.

The committee’s findings “demonstrate that the public narrative popularized by Snowden and his allies is rife with falsehoods, exaggerations and crucial omissions, a pattern that began before he stole 1.5 million sensitive documents,” the report said.

Snowden compromised secrets that once protected American troops overseas and secrets that were used in countering terrorism along with dealing with threats from states such as China and Russia.

Some of the disclosures “resulted in the loss of intelligence streams that had saved American lives,” the report said.

The Pentagon identified 13 high-risk areas of potential damage from future intelligence disclosures, including several that related to defense capabilities. “If the Russian or Chinese governments have access to this information, American troops will be at greater risk in any future conflict,” the report said.

Snowden was described as a “serial exaggerator and fabricator” who intentionally lied about his past in order to promote himself to senior positions and gain greater access to secrets.

However, the report includes new disclosures that security officials at both CIA and NSA failed to recognize that Snowden was likely to betray the government’s trust and disclose significant U.S. intelligence capabilities that have been lost or restricted as a result.

For example, NSA security officials failed to conduct a routine check of Snowden’s educational background. Had they done so, NSA would have learned that Snowden had dropped out of high school in his sophomore year, yet falsely stated on his resume he had graduated from “Maryland High School” in 2001. There is no high school in Maryland with that name.

Snowden also was granted a “top secret” security clearance in 2005 despite an associate warning security investigators he should not be given access to secrets.

Snowden was hired as a computer technician by a CIA contractor and converted to CIA employment in 2006 after obtaining a security clearance. While at CIA, he complained of harassment by a supervisor.

He was posted overseas, but was relieved of his position after altering CIA software improperly and disobeying orders.

Snowden then applied for work at NSA and was hired by an NSA contractor in 2009. However, the report revealed that CIA failed to update a security database with derogatory information about Snowden. As a result, NSA failed to learn of his problems at CIA before hiring him.

The Office of Personnel Management updated Snowden’s security clearance in 2011 with an investigation later found to have been incomplete.

“Among other flaws, the investigation never attempted to verify Snowden’s CIA employment or speak to his CIA supervisors, nor did it attempt to independently verify Snowden’s self-report of a past security violation—areas where further information could have alerted NSA to CIA’s concerns,” the report said.

Investigators also failed to check job references on Snowden beyond those he offered: his mother and girlfriend.

While working for NSA in Hawaii, Snowden was described by coworkers as “arrogant” and “squirrelly.” They said he was chronically late for work, and would claim he overslept as a result of staying up late to play video games.

Coworkers said Snowden expressed few political views, but voiced sympathies for China based on meetings with Chinese hackers.

Snowden, according to the report, once claimed “the United States caused problems for China but China never caused problems for the United States.”

Another NSA coworker said Snowden defended Wikileaks’ collaborator Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, who stole tens of thousands of State Department and Pentagon documents while posted in Iraq.

The report also disclosed the methods used by Snowden to break into NSA’s classified computer networks and download large numbers of documents.

The secrets were stolen from NSANet, the agency’s internal computer network, and from an intelligence community-wide system called the Joint Warfighter Information Computer System. The 1.5 million documents, if printed out, would form a pile more than 3 miles high.

As a computer systems administrator, Snowden used downloading tools called scraping software, specifically a program called “wget” and “DownThemAll!” that allowed large numbers of files to be downloaded over slow networks.

NSA failed to use monitoring tools that could have detected the illegal document downloading, the report said.

Snowden also used a desktop computer in Hawaii, a loophole that allowed him to avoid security scrutiny while stealing documents.

The document theft began in the summer of 2012 at the same time Snowden sought full-time NSA employment. According to the report, Snowden was able to cheat on a test he was given in pursuit of full-time NSA position by accessing the test answers on an NSA network.

He was offered a post in NSA’s hacking intelligence unit, the Tailored Access Operations office. However, Snowden’s demand for a higher salary derailed the job offer.

Snowden contacted leftwing journalist Glenn Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras in December 2012 and January 2013, respectively, and provided both with documents.

By late 2013, Snowden went to work for intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton in an NSA office that battled cyber attacks from Russia and China. While working there, Snowden stole additional documents from the NSA National Threat Operation Center—information that would be valuable to governments in Russia and China.

Snowden boarded a flight for Hong Kong on May 19, 2013. The first disclosures from Greenwald were published on June 5, 2013.

The report said Snowden did not use legal whistleblower protections to raise his objections to NSA surveillance.

In a heavily redacted section on foreign influence, the report quoted a Russian official as saying Snowden shared intelligence with the Russian government.

Intelligence agencies conducted limited damage assessments of the Snowden case, and have not investigated his motive or whether he worked as an agent of a foreign intelligence service.

The disclosures of NSA documents to date represent what the report called the “tip of the iceberg” of more damaging disclosures, the report said.

The cost of mitigating the damage could reach $1 billion.

Security reforms also have not been fully implemented by NSA and other agencies to prevent future insiders from compromising secrets.

“The committee remains concerned that NSA, like the [intelligence community] as a whole, have not done enough to reduce the chances of future insider threats like Snowden,” the report concludes.

The Pentagon under the administration of Donald Trump will face challenges in cyber security, acquisitions management, and numerous other areas that demand continued oversight.

The Pentagon’s inspector general this week published its fiscal year 2017 oversight plan, identifying the key challenges facing the Defense Department as the president-elect prepares to take office.

Among 10 “critical” management and performance challenges facing the Pentagon is boosting the military’s cybersecurity and cyber capabilities at a time when hackers from Russia and China are increasingly targeting U.S. systems—including those used by government personnel–with cyber attacks.

The issue of cybersecurity has invited heightened attention after the U.S. intelligence community accused the Russian government of directing cyber attacks on systems used by U.S. political organizations in order to influence the presidential election. Russian hackers also breached the unclassified email system used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff last August, compromising the information of hundreds of military personnel.

“The DoD has become increasingly reliant on cyberspace to enable its military, intelligence, and business operations to perform the full spectrum of military operations without disruption, and cyber threats and exploitable vulnerabilities have grown substantially,” the inspector general report states.

“DoD continues to face significant challenges in protecting and securing its networks, systems, and infrastructure from cyber threats and in increasing its overall cyber capabilities. Cyberspace threats to the DoD continue to increase at an alarming rate.”

The Pentagon inspector general has previously spotlighted the significant cyber-related hurdles facing the department, writing in an annual report issued last week that a “wide range of cyber security weaknesses” had been identified in the Pentagon’s systems and networks over the last year.

Cybersecurity will be one of several areas of focus of the watchdog in 2017, as Trump takes office and retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, the president-elect’s choice for defense secretary, begins his confirmation process to assume the leading role at the Pentagon.

Other serious challenges cited by the inspector general include countering the terrorism threat, protecting key defense infrastructure, developing full spectrum total force capabilities, building and keeping readiness of the U.S. armed forces, and countering the main global strategic challenges posed by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and terror groups.

The Defense Department also needs to focus on ensuring ethical conduct, improving financial management, and enabling effective acquisition and contract management, according to the watchdog.

Trump has already put heat on expensive Pentagon acquisitions programs, most notably by slamming the “out of control” costs associated with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Scheduling delays and associated cost overruns have plagued Lockheed Martin’s development of the fifth-general stealth fighter jets and the program’s budget has ballooned to $400 billion—nearly double its initial estimate—over 15 years, making it the Pentagon’s most expensive acquisition program.

Trump, who met with the CEOs of major defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing on Wednesday, wrote on Twitter late Thursday that he had asked Boeing to “price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet,” an older aircraft, because of the high costs of the F-35 development.

“Acquisition and contract management have been high-risk areas for the DoD for many years,” the inspector general’s strategy document states. “Although Congress and the DoD have long sought to improve the acquisition of major weapon systems, many DoD programs are still falling short of cost, schedule, and performance expectations. This can result in unanticipated cost overruns, program development spanning decades, and, in some cases, a reduction in the capability ultimately delivered to the warfighter.”

The Pentagon has 1,375 defense acquisitions programs, which it needs $183.9 billion in 2017 to fund.

For its own part, the inspector general intends to audit several acquisition programs in 2017, including the Navy Expeditionary Fast Transport, the Marine Corps Amphibious Assault Vehicle, Navy Mine Countermeasures Mission Package, and the Army and Marine Corps Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, in addition to several audits of military contracts.

The transition process at the Pentagon has already begun, with Trump’s team setting up shop at the department to receive briefings. The inspector general also highlighted the management of the transition process as a key challenge for the Pentagon, given the rotation of personnel and possible national security implications of a bungled transition.

“While managing presidential transitions is a challenging issue for all federal departments and agencies, it is especially true for the DoD because of the national security implications,” the inspector general wrote. “Gaps in leadership, delays in approving key decisions, and uncertainty about policy objectives can have significant effects on national security. For that reason, it is critical that the transition to new leadership be smooth, effective, timely, and seamless.”

Mattis will face confirmation hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee next year to become defense secretary, but first Congress must pass a waiver allowing him to serve in the top defense post despite not being out of the service for seven years. Trump will be inaugurated on Jan. 20.

For someone like me, who’s warned about foreign espionage—especially Russian—for years, usually to little avail, it’s a pleasant change to see the mainstream media talk about so much Kremlin spies these days. It’s gratifying to witness the Obama White House, which downplayed and simply ignored Russian clandestine spy-games for almost eight years, suddenly pledge to get serious about it. That this sea-change is coming as President Obama is packing his belongings and therefore will have minimal real-world impact doesn’t mean it’s not welcome.

All the same, the emerging debate about what exactly Vladimir Putin and his spies did in 2016 to influence our elections is already politically toxic, fundamentally dishonest, and flagrantly partisan. As is now the custom in Washington, both sides are more than willing to ignore inconvenient facts when they get in the way of their preferred narrative about this year.

Therefore, without delay, we need a to debunk a few of the most pernicious falsehoods about the SpyWar events of 2016. The logical place to start is the issue of Russian “hacking” itself, which is being portrayed as a grand criminal conspiracy orchestrated by Putin personally, in the bowels of the Kremlin. All that’s missing is a cat on his lap to perfect the clichéd movie bad spy-guy image here.

That’s a flawed way to look at it, however. In truth, the vast majority of the email theft perpetrated by Russian spies against the Democrats was utterly normal signals intelligence collection, what the pros call SIGINT. Russians do it, we do it—in 2016 every country that can does it. Spies steal secrets, it’s what they do. Of course espionage is illegal basically everywhere, but everybody does it. Hyperventilating about it doesn’t help.

A century ago, when radio hit the world by storm—they called it wireless telegraphy back then—countries put their communications in the ether, and their opponents intercepted them: thus was SIGINT born. It quickly became the world’s most important form of espionage, and so it remains. Today everybody puts most of their communications on the Internet, so that’s where SIGINT professionals hunt for them.

India's national security adviser made a low-key visit to Washington this week to meet with a top aide to President-elect Donald Trump in a sign of New Delhi's desire to forge close ties with the incoming U.S. administration

Post Politics

Trump News Review

4/29/2017: Trump and Russia

UK Government was handed dossier on Donald Trump links to Russia last year, court papers reveal: it covers "at least" five years of communication, co-operation and conspiracy between Mr Trump's camp and Russian intelligence officials." | See also: 1.13.17 - Former MI6 agent Christopher Steele's frustration as FBI sat on Donald Trump Russia file for months | UK was given details of alleged contacts between Trump campaign and Moscow - The Guardian: A statement by Steele's defence lawyers, endorsed by the former MI6 agent, said Orbis was hired between June and November last year by Fusion GPS, a Washington-based research consultancy to look into Trump's links with Russia. In that period, Steele ...

The statistical effects of the October 28 Letter and the questions to the FBI - by Michael Novakhov

4.25.17 - "Many good questions could and should al-zo be asked when Mr. Comey testifies in the closed session of the House Intelligence Committee next week... Comey's overall "motivations" might be complex and and at the same time simple: the security of the country. The details of these complexities are not easy to read..." | Federal Bureau of Investigation - NYT - News Review

British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia - G | Can FBI director James Comey untangle the Trump-Russia allegations?

"Trumpism" as the "social-political experiment" and the "Gang of Four"

The engineered election of Donald Trump as the U.S. President is the joint operation of the German, Russian, and Israeli Intelligence Services with the major executive and operational role played by the Russian-Jewish Mafia at the head of the International Organized Crime.

The Snake Pit, Part 4: 4.6 - 5.17 - Page 1

Trump News and Investigations Review

The Snake Pit, Part 3: 4.5.17

The Review of Journalistic and Legal Investigations of the Foreign Interference in the US Presidential Elections of 2016, Part 3: 4.5.17

The Snake Pit, Part 2: 4.4 - 1.17

Updates on the Investigations of Foreign Interference in 2016 US Presidential Elections - Part 2 - April 4 to 1, 2017

The Snake Pit, Part 1: 3.31.17 and prior articles: The FBI "investigation" is indeed, "absurd"...

Not because it is unjust or unjustified, but because it is grossly inadequate - Investigation of Foreign Interference in 2016 US Presidential Elections - Part 1 - March 2017

Just Security

Defense One - All Content

US national security | The Guardian

National Security - WaPo

www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security

Howl!

The America of my dreams: Shattered. Raped.

Mohammed and The Great Twin Peak Mountain

But maybe there is the third option: both the Mountain and Mohammed might start inching towards each other, in a slow Middle Eastern dance, under the excited accompaniment of tamburins and harmonicas by their neighbors and other Mountains. Maybe, if we try to push all the right buttons...

"I will call him" "Ishmael"

The Global and The US Domestic Terrorism Incidents, The Mass Shooting Incidents, and The Incidents of Shooting at the U.S. Police Officers: Comparisons and The Illustrations for The Statistical Analysis - The Brinsley's Jacket

Omar Mateen and 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting - The Dots, The Darkness, and The Mirrors, part 2

Quotes and Questions for Investigations

THE DARKNESS OF THE LOWLY TRUTHS

9/11 and Russia – connecting the dots - by Michael Novakhov

FBI on a couch: problems and solutions: FBI as a domestic intelligence service

The American KGB and the Comey's visions: can Hoover's COINTELPRO thugs be transformed into the modern counterintelligence officers? | M.N.: The American KGB wants to take over the US government. Oy, gevalt! Maybe, it is the time to order a ticket to Madagascar.. - Quotes and Comments

What is wrong with the FBI?

The Kiryas Joel affair: "Sexual abuse" or FBI abuse? | Michael Ameri's suicide as a protest against the FBI: What is wrong with the FBI: its strategy, tactics, techniques and methods if they lead to these unexpected and tragic results?

Kiryas Joel: "Sexual abuse" or FBI abuse?

Is there a general attempt to mislead and to manipulate the FBI using the issues of sexual abuse as a pretext, as a way to deal with the political and other opponents?

Investigate the "investigators"! Part 2: FBI as "a high church for the true mediocre"

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The U.S. and Global Security Review

The Panama Papers: Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin - The Guardian

How to hide a billion dollars | The Panama Papers – YouTube

Russia's Withdrawal from Syria

M.N.: Did "Putin get exactly what he wanted in Syria?" Not "exactly". | "For Russia to continue would have meant increased military costs and lives. Russia already has lost military personnel, including at least one general. This intervention, most probably never intended to be long-term, may have become short-term in the face of even incremental increased U.S. and allied assistance." - Putin Got Exactly What He Wanted in Syria - Defense One

The New "Unholy Alliance" or The "New World Order"? - Russia, China, Iran and Latin America

“They operate deliberately in the Western Hemisphere as part of their broader global strategies. The most concerning of them is Russia, which portrays the United States in our theater as unreliable and as withdrawing from this pivotal region,” Tidd said. Security in the Western Hemisphere connects directly to other parts of the world, the admiral said. “Smuggling networks run through South America directly into our homeland [and] foreign terrorist fighters flow from the Caribbean to Syria and to Iraq,” Tidd added. As part of its global strategy, he said, Russia tries to discredit U.S. reliability as a trustworthy partner in the United States’ own region. “These issues transcend artificial boundaries and demand a transregional, united response,” the admiral said. | "Iran’s growing influence in the region—and its effort to exert influence over governments there—has fostered pressing security concerns as the Iranians inch closer to the United States’ southern border, according to these U.S. officials and Latin American leaders, who met for several days this week at a summit organized by the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF)... Iran is becoming increasingly open about its presence in Latin America and providing its officials with passports from Venezuela and other countries, giving them free rein to travel throughout South America. Iran has forged close ties with countries such as Argentina, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, among others." - Iran Steps Up Covert Action in Latin America - Web and News Review

The Case Of Litvinenko, The Trails Of Polonium, And The Islamic Terrorism As a Russian False Flag

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Israel News Review

Middle East News

The Mysterious Life And Death Of Igor Sergun, The Chief Of The GRU - Russian Military Intelligence

"I’m frankly unsure how to feel about his death. As a career U.S. Army military intelligence officer, and our senior military attaché to Russia from 2012 to 2014, I met with General Sergun and his staff several times for extended periods. I found him soft-spoken, unassuming, complex, erudite and nuanced. And I learned that even as Sergun relentlessly directed global intelligence operations against our interests, he — paradoxically — also viewed constant confrontation with the U.S. and West as not in Russia’s best long-term interest." - Death of the GRU Commander - by Peter Zwack - from "Defense One" | Igor Sergun - News and Web Review

Investigate the "investigators"! FBI as "a high church for the true mediocre"

"At bottom, I mean profoundly at bottom, the FBI has nothing to do with Communism, it has nothing to do with catching criminals, it has nothing to do with the Mafia, the syndicate, it has nothing to do with trust-busting, it has nothing to do with interstate commerce, it has nothing to do with anything but serving as a church for the mediocre. A high church for the true mediocre." Norman Mailer | "Investigate the "investigators"! I would think that no less than 50% of the problems this country is facing is due to the FBI's inadequacy. This is a very important issue and the time has come to address it." - by Michael Novakhov

Russia, Putin and Putinism

Nato, Russia and Europe

Nato Russia - Google News

Cyber Wars - June 2015

Was FBI operational data hacked? - Google Search | Report: Chinese Hackers Got Into FBI Personnel Files: "Then again, maybe it was Russia – pretending to be China." | Obama Ignores Red Line Amid Chinese Cyberattack - Investor's Business Daily - ‎16 hours ago: "Cyberwar: The damage done by Chinese hackers grows worse by the day, with news that they stole a treasure trove of blackmail-worthy material on those with high security clearances. What's Obama's reaction?" | NSA Chief: Don’t Assume China Hacked OPM | Cyber Commander: OPM Hack Highlights Data Theft Danger: "Adm. Mike Rogers, who is also director of the National Security Agency, declined to name China as the main culprit in the attacks but would not reveal who the intelligence agencies believe conducted the intelligence-gathering operation. Asked after a speech on what basis Cyber Command is linking the OPM hack to China, Rogers said: “I’m not going to accept the assumption” that China played a role in the cyber attacks. “First of all I’m not going to get into the specifics of attribution,” the four-star admiral said at a conference in Washington called GEOINT 2015. “That’s a process that we’re working through on the policy side. That’s ongoing.”"